Ajmer blast reveals new agenda of terrorists

Khawaja Moinuddin Chisti's shrine in Ajmer, which has a 796-year-old history, is in the news for all the wrong reasons. An act of terror committed on the holy shrine, more popularly known as the Ajmer Dargah, has raised one important question -- Why was this shrine attacked?

Preliminary investigations point out that Bangladesh-based Harkat-ul-Jehad al-Islam is behind this attack. The HuJI has also been blamed for the attacks at Hyderabad and Malegaon. All the three blasts took place at a time when prayers were on.

The key question is why will HuJI attack a religious place and more importantly a mosque or a dargah? When the blasts occurred in Malegaon and Hyderabad, it was clear that the intention was to cause to communal disharmony. Officers in the Intelligence Bureau say that in Ajmer, it was a case of aiming at two birds with a stone.

Apart from disrupting communal harmony, another agenda in the minds of the terrorists of late has been the unification of Islam. There has been a rising discontent among a section of the Muslims, especially in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, over the modernization of Islam.

A sect of the Muslims feels that there should be only one Muslim voice across the world. This sect also believes in the worship of only Allah and Mohammad Prophet and disregards worship at dargahs. It is also said that the Muslim should bow his head only before Allah and Prophet. IB sources say it is this extremist thinking, which could have triggered off the Ajmer blast.

However, the police maintain that even if the theory being put out by the IB is true, then it is simply a case of killing two birds with one stone for the terrorists. The fact that they are trying to creating a major communal imbalance within the country should also not be ruled out the police say.

The dargah at Ajmer has been on the terror radar since the 2003 itself. This was revealed during the interrogation of some militants of the Lashkar-Tayiba militants. Several maps of the dargah had been recovered from them. While the LET and HuJI carry out attacks only to destabilize other countries, their money managers in Saudi Arabia have another agenda on hand.

Apart from destabilizing countries, the attacks are also aimed at bringing all Muslims under one umbrella. It is felt that Muslims should have only one faith and should stand united. They feel that every Muslim has to stand united in order to attain Islamic supremacy.

However, there are lot many Muslims who refuse to subscribe to this view and hence they are being terrorized, the IB claims.

Blasts in Hyderabad and Ajmer have proven that terrorists have a larger agenda on hand. In Hyderabad, apart from causing communal tension, the militant outfits had also sworn to liberate the city from Hindu rule and bring the Nizam rule. In Ajmer the terror outfits sought to send across a strong signal that they do not approve of dargah worship.

A similar mentality was seen in Kafeel Ahmed, the man who died recently after the failed UK terror plot. Ahmed, who spent his early years in Saudi Arabia, too was of the view that only Allah should be worshipped and prayers at dargahs should be discouraged as it is opposed to Islam.

There have been instances when Kafeel had fought with some of the religious teachers in mosques in Bangalore. He had questioned the wearing of a namaaz (prayer) cap and other traditions, which are usually not followed back in Saudi Arabia.